Authors: Lamar Waldron
against Dr. King and other civil rights leaders. Taylor Branch writes that
“within hours [the FBI] disseminated to ‘cooperative news sources’ a
blind memorandum stating that ‘the result of King’s famous espousal of
nonviolence was vandalism, looting, and riot.’” The next day “Hoover
approved a second effort ‘to publicize hypocrisy on the part of [Dr.
King].’”13
One of these was an infamous memo chiding Dr. King for “leading
the lambs to slaughter,” then fleeing to the safety of “the plush Holiday
Inn” instead of the Lorraine Motel, “owned and patronized exclusively
by Negroes.” When the memo was first revealed in the mid-1970s, some
saw it as part of an FBI effort to get Dr. King to the Lorraine Motel as
part of a massive assassination plot. But the House Select Committee on
Assassinations found that theory wasn’t true, since King often stayed at
the Lorraine on his trips to Memphis and would have stayed there on
his next trip regardless.14
The FBI continued waging its propaganda war against Dr. King and
the other civil rights leaders and groups, as well as conceiving various
dirty tricks. Branch found that Hoover wanted to tie Dr. King to both the
Nation of Islam and boxer Muhammad Ali, who had refused military
service in Vietnam in 1966. The head of Chicago’s FBI office pointed out
that blacks knew that Dr. King and the Nation of Islam weren’t allied,
and Ali was so popular that the FBI’s plans “might backfire,” but the
autocratic Hoover ordered them implemented anyway. Mississippi’s
FBI office sent Hoover a proposal “to distribute leaflets skewing King
as a fancy dresser who deserted his people,” an idea that Hoover had
under consideration at the time of Dr. King’s murder.15
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
Such efforts sound almost silly in hindsight, but some American
newspapers picked up on Hoover’s propaganda. Branch points to the
Memphis Commercial Appeal
’s story headlined “Chicken à la King” and
a
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
story that denounced Dr. King as “one of the
most menacing men in America today.” While not parroting Hoover’s
spin, even newspapers like the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
took a cautious tone regarding Dr. King and his efforts.16
One day before Dr. King would return to Memphis, Hoover tried to
use the Memphis riot as an excuse to get approval for more wiretaps
against King and the SCLC. But LBJ’s attorney general, Ramsey Clark,
turned down Hoover’s request, just as he had back in January, leav-
ing Hoover even more dependent on his allies in the country’s secret
domestic surveillance network, from police intelligence units to military
intelligence to the CIA.17
Members of the 111th Military Intelligence Group were sent to Mem-
phis starting “on March 28, 1968,” as documented by authors Hancock
and Wexler. They write that “this Civil Disorder Operation (Lantern
Strike) involved coordination with Memphis Police, the FBI, and the
Tennessee National Guard . . . to monitor and respond to any civil dis-
order involved with . . . the sanitation workers’ strike. Members of this
group [would] maintain surveillance on Dr. King and were observing
his rooms at the Lorraine Motel” when he returned to Memphis on April
3, 1968.18 Because of the riot, Dr. King would be under unusually heavy
official surveillance upon his return, a situation that could yield helpful
opportunities for those able to penetrate the surveillance network for
the Mafia.
One Mafia-affiliated person with access to intelligence about King
was Sgt. Jack de la Llana, Trafficante’s man on the Tampa police force,
who could access information nationwide using the Law Enforcement
Intelligence Unit (LEIU) or his direct contacts. De la Llana would also be
able to feed information or disinformation into the intelligence system.
His boss, Trafficante, shared the drug network through Memphis with
Marcello and would not want to see it disrupted again.
Marcello’s ally Johnny Rosselli also had ways to learn about or pen-
etrate the government’s domestic surveillance network. In late March
1967, Rosselli met with his old CIA friend, William Harvey. Such a meet-
ing could have been helpful in case Rosselli’s connection to James Earl
Ray ever surfaced after Dr. King’s murder. While Harvey was no longer
in the CIA, his many high-level contacts in the Agency included the
CIA’s liaison with the FBI.19
The Memphis riots would have affected the plans of Joseph Milteer and
Carlos Marcello. For Milteer, the Atlanta press coverage of the riots no
doubt generated additional pressure on him, Hugh Spake, and their
other two Atlanta partners. For Marcello, the riots would have con-
firmed his worst fears about the civil rights leader’s potential for dis-
rupting his Memphis drug network’s profits and his Mafia allies’ vice
operations in that city, and potentially other cities in his territory. The riot
could have accelerated the timing of Dr. King’s assassination, in hopes
that King would be killed before his next march could trigger another
riot. Reports of the massive damages from the riot would be all the more
reason not to kill Dr. King in Atlanta, which meant the assassination
would happen in Memphis.
We cited earlier the Justice Department memo, withheld from the
HSCA, which said that one person helping Marcello implement the King
contract from the racist group was “Frank [C.] Liberto . . . a Memphis
racketeer and lieutenant of Carlos Marcello,” who had both family and
business ties to the New Orleans godfather. One of the regular customers
at Frank C. Liberto’s Memphis produce store was black civil rights
worker John McFerren, who had heard rumors that Liberto might have
ties to the Mafia. On one shopping trip, “he overheard [Liberto] say
about Martin Luther King: ‘Somebody ought to kill that son of a bitch.’”
Later, the FBI would talk to “Frank C. Liberto [who admitted he] may
have made derogatory remarks about King because of the loss of rev-
enues caused by his activities.” Liberto also “admitted making [those]
remarks . . . in the presence of their customers,” further buttressing
McFerren’s credibility.20 According to the Justice Department memo,
“[James Earl] Ray’s contacts in New Orleans were with Mafia–Cosa
Nostra representatives who referred him to Frank [C.] Liberto.”21
On March 31, 1968, the nation was hit with a bombshell when President
Johnson announced at the end of his prime-time televised speech about
Vietnam that he was withdrawing from the race for another term. His
statement dramatically changed the political landscape for America,
and for Dr. King and Bobby in particular. Earlier that day, Dr. King had
delivered a rousing sermon at Washington National Cathedral, making
comments indirectly criticizing LBJ, saying the US was in “one of the
most unjust wars in the history of the world.” At a press conference later
that day, Nick Kotz writes, “King declared that he could not support
President Johnson for reelection.” King closed his remarks by saying he
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
was going to return to Memphis on April 2, to “prove that nonviolent”
protest could still work.22
At home in Atlanta that night, Dr. King was buoyed by LBJ’s announce-
ment that he was withdrawing from the race. According to Kotz, “the
next morning, King decided to postpone the Poor People’s Campaign.”
However, most historians, including Taylor Branch, cite information
showing that the oft-delayed campaign was still progressing despite
its many problems, which included finding enough volunteers to make
the trek to Washington. Meanwhile, Dr. King’s return to Memphis was
rescheduled until April 3.23
Bobby Kennedy was probably just as shocked as the rest of the coun-
try by President Johnson’s unexpected announcement. Perhaps because
their recent negotiations via Sorensen and Clifford had been at least
cordial, Bobby asked to meet with LBJ. President Johnson agreed to see
Bobby and Sorensen on April 3.24
The meeting between Bobby Kennedy and President Johnson was as
friendly as it was unlikely. The two long-standing adversaries seemed to
make a genuine effort to gloss over, if not patch up, their differences. It
probably helped that Bobby was accompanied by Ted Sorensen, whom
LBJ admired and had originally wanted for his own administration. As
Taylor Branch recounted, Bobby told LBJ, “Your speech was magnifi-
cent.” Bobby “said he appreciated the heavy burdens on Johnson and
regretted letting their difference leave him out of touch.” Taking a share
of the blame, Bobby said, “A lot of . . . the feud ‘was my fault.’”25
After the mutual compliments, and LBJ’s revelation that North Viet-
nam had just agreed to start the process leading to peace talks, Bobby got
down to the political business both men knew so well. LBJ told Bobby he
wouldn’t be giving advice to his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who
was now making his own run for the nomination. According to Branch,
LBJ said that “while reserving his options . . . he would try to stay out of
the race.” After delving into more political details, the meeting ended
on a hopeful note as LBJ said that “he regarded all he had done as a con-
tinuation of the Kennedy-Johnson program—in education, poverty, and
civil rights.” Bobby replied, “You are a brave and dedicated man”—and
then repeated the words, to make sure Johnson heard the compliment
that few would ever have imagined just days earlier.26
LBJ’s withdrawal from the race, his meeting with Bobby, and the
start of the peace process with North Vietnam all raise two issues about
Martin Luther King. The cordial meeting between the two former foes
suggests that LBJ and Dr. King might have eventually had a similar
rapprochement. Their antagonism had not lasted nearly as long as that
between LBJ and Bobby, and even in the wake of the Memphis riots,
LBJ had avoided publicly criticizing Dr. King by name, making only
general comments about the need for protesters to obey the law. Their
biggest difference was over the Vietnam War, which was now going to
be the subject of negotiations with North Vietnam. However, disputes
still existed between the two—most prominently, the need for enacting
the Kerner Commission’s recommendations, which Dr. King embraced
but LBJ wanted to ignore. Dr. King’s murder, the day after LBJ’s meeting
with Bobby, ended any possibility of seeing what might have developed
between the two men who had done so much for civil rights.
LBJ’s decisions to not seek another term and to begin the peace pro-
cess with North Vietnam are also significant factors in evaluating Dr.
King’s assassination. Many of those who think LBJ was part of a huge
government conspiracy to murder Dr. King ignore the fact that LBJ had
dropped out of the race and started the peace process prior to King’s
murder. It’s difficult to see what LBJ had to gain by Dr. King’s death,
but he certainly had a lot to lose. The resulting nationwide riots ended
any chance of LBJ’s cementing civil rights and fighting poverty as his
major legacy, leaving his dream of a Great Society literally in ashes. That
the Vietnam peace process had begun before King’s assassination has
been largely overlooked for decades, because LBJ’s efforts were sabo-
taged in late October 1968 by Republican candidate Richard Nixon, as
is now well documented by declassified files. Finally, black leaders like
Rep. Louis Stokes, on the House Select Committee for Assassinations,
looked for any signs that LBJ and other federal agencies were part of a
plot to kill Dr. King, and concluded that no evidence existed for such a
massive plot.27
Chapter Forty-nine
On April 1, 1968, Atlanta newspapers reported that Martin Luther King
would soon return to Memphis for a peaceful demonstration. On April
3, 1968, around 7:00 PM, James Earl Ray checked into the New Rebel
Inn, a motel on the outskirts of Memphis. Memphis was 398 miles from
Atlanta by the most convenient route, meaning that Ray could have left
Atlanta early that morning or the previous day. One of Ray’s brothers
later claimed to have received a call from him on April 3, in which Ray
“just acted excited, jubilant.”1
Many of Ray’s actions over the following days and weeks have been
the subject of controversy for decades. While we won’t dwell on Ray’s
claims that have repeatedly been debunked or altered by him, we will
cite information, uncovered by his various defense attorneys, that has
withstood the test of time. Because of the FBI’s bias against Dr. King, we
try to use government reports that were both critical and skeptical of
the FBI. These include the 1977 Justice Department Task Force Review
and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, headed by African-
American civil rights figures like Rep. Louis Stokes (a former prosecu-